Flamenco guitars

kidtulsa

Howdy folks --

Off subject, i know, but can anyone suggest some good starting-off points for flamenco guitar -- sites, books, teachers, etc.
Also, suggestions for a beginning flamenco guitar would be great.
thanks,
Pete

TenorClef

When i wanted to try some Flamenco on my classical guitar i used the Mel Bay's 'Easy Flamenco Solos', comes with a CD. The guy on the CD plays much better than me I'm sure their will be other good starters too.

nwilkins

Juan Martin's series of books is supposed to be good and is apparently very popular.

http://www.juanmartin.com/

Bohemian

for all the info you want/need

go to

foroflamenco

or flamencoteacher

Duozona

Pete

I do some flamenco teaching at my school, so I have experience dealing with 'books' that teach essentially a non-notated, historically passed-down style....sound like something else we all share a fancy for? I have forever asked my friends who are the real deal what book I should use etc. and they constantly hit me with "I dunno, no books really, just get with an experienced player and some dancers and you will learn"...you get the idea....

Much like gypsy jazz should start with rhythm playing before jumping into being a soloist, flamenco guitarists learn the flamenco forms, the compas, then slowly add the other elements of a complete performance (entrada, letras, llamada, estribillo, falseta). I guess it would be like learnign a basic chord chart, then talking about intros, breaks, tails, turn-arounds, trading fours etc..

anyway, here is what I have found to be most useful for the traditional approach. All of the Gerhard Graf-Martinez instructional material is excellent, really top-notch, delivered in a logical, progressive manner. If you use his books you will learn the basic forms, techniques, and be functional rather than trying to learn big solos by Sabicas or Paco right off the bat. I cant tell you how many times I've seen people playing big solo rep, but cant hang with the dancers at all...very bad idea! Graf-Martinez also has a cool flamenco metronome you can download ($).

http://www.graf-martinez.com/

other sites that are great include:

http://216.122.18.87/index.html (flamenco connection)

http://www.esflamenco.com/ (great portal and newsletter)

http://www.ctv.es/USERS/norman/ (some cool riffs and history)

http://www.deflamenco.com/indexi.jsp (more cool resources)

Let me know if I can be of any assistance as you progress.

-Chuck

kidtulsa

Hey Chuck,

Thanks for the links...very cool stuff. I'd like to chat with you a bit more about this, if you have some time. My email is <!-- e --><a href="mailto:kidtulsa@gmail.com">kidtulsa@gmail.com</a><!-- e -->. Thanks so much again,
Pete

Duozona

emailed you